edu.neu.ccs.codec
Interface Codec

Interface describing the required functionality of a
class of objects whose instances can be used
to encode and decode data Strings
using a recursively-enabled data language.

In short, an class implementing this interface
must be able to encode an array of data Strings
into a single, compound data String
that can later be decoded back to the original array
of data Strings.
Implementation details such as the encoding scheme,
compression ratio, or information loss, are specific
to a class that implements this interface.

A CODEC class may only be used
after an instance of the class has been installed
using the CodecUtilities.installCodec(Codec) method.
The standard CODECs provided by the JPT,
whose CODEC identifiers are "CPC" and "ESC",
and are defined in classes
CountPrefixCodec and
EscapedCodec respectively,
are installed by default by the JPT,
and may be used at any time.